e-Con e-News

blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com

‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’

e-Con e-News 27 July – 02 August 2025

‘If John Keells goes down, it takes half of Sri Lankan capitalism with it…

The government might have to choose between a bailout or economic chaos.’

– SJB MP (see ee Economists, The John Keells Collapse)

*

India, Russia Can Take Their Dead Economies Down Together

– US President Donald Trump

*

‘In the looming confrontation between the US-led Collective West & Russia,

Trump is threatening that if India does not join the Western camp, there is

going to be a heavy price to pay. He may even sanction Indian entities &

officials. Now, visa denial will be the unkindest cut of all for the Indian elite.’

– MK Bhadrakumar (ee Sovereignty, A Frenemy named Donald Trump)

*

The recent arrest of a high-profile former Navy Commander came a few days before the US government signaled a token reduction of their threatened tariffs on Sri Lanka’s exports. After prolonged handwringing and groaning about possible harm to employment and closure of export-related businesses, the USA’s promise of a tariff reduction, despite being short on details, was greeted with concerted groveling and applause by the usual export mafia of chambers & associations, related politicians and US-funded media & thinktanks: this corporate mafia are attempting to pull the country back from the abyss, their wholesale endorsement of merchant & usurer capitalism imposed by the colonial import-export plantation is driving us all into.

     Meanwhile, following a ‘security’ policy dialogue with Japan, there has been an attempt by importers from Japanese auto junkyards to bring down John Keells Holdings (JKH) for importing (BYD) electric vehicles from China. They claim JKH provided fraudulent engine specifications to the revenue authorities, to avoid huge taxes. The USA’s IMF has been insisting that Sri Lanka import more cars, as its twin, the World Bank, is an investor in the ‘private’ Commercial Bank of Ceylon (ComBank), which finances the import of Japan’s Toyota vehicles.

*

Admiral Nishantha Ulugetenne was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) based on a letter allegedly sent from a detention centre in Pothuhera, where ‘an individual’ (so far unnamed in media) had supposedly been murdered in 2010. Ulugetenne was Head of Naval Intelligence at the time, and the alleged victim was reportedly held in the clandestine facility operated under his command.

Ulugetenne is said to have played a key role in intercepting LTTE arms supply vessels. He was later made an ambassador to Cuba. Ulugetenne is also credited with saving former President Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s life by helping him to escape a mob that was allowed to invade the Presidential Palace. They have since then kept baying for his blood, and still do. If the then-President had been harmed, as the US government through its envoy had purportedly threatened to do, a bloodbath would surely have ensued. Such US threats, as well as assassinations & incarcerations of military and national leaders, have been evident more recently also in Haiti, Honduras, and Peru.

More such arrests are being planned.

*

What we have is a PR makeover of standard international financial flows

– just dressed up in a populist narrative. So, when Japan ‘invests in the US’

it’s basically just shifting existing or incoming dollars into different forms

of US assets – not new capital, just recycled surplus – Warwick Powell

(see ee Economy, Window dressing: the Japan-US ‘investment deal’)

*

The US claims about the imposition and reductions of tariffs are immediately challenged by the more ‘developed’ countries involved, even though the merchant media including in Sri Lanka reports them as gospel truth. It is also blatantly clear that the US tariffs have less to do with seeking equitable trade & enabling industrialization, than with ensuring & extending US domination. The USA’s 50% tariff on Brazil accompanies their demand for interference in Brazil’s judiciary to exonerate a former President accused of an attempted coup, while threatening other countries who join the BRICS, etc. The US & Europe are apparently mortified at any attempt by countries to collectively challenge the ongoing practice of their multinational corporations (MNCs) to play workers against each other, driving wages down. The US calculations of tariffs have, however, underplayed our huge net imports of US ‘services’ as well as royalty payments for intellectual property rights (IPR), etc.

*

‘No digital space is 100% secure. Data is systematically collected

& used to assess & classify individuals & groups based on

their behavioral patterns & political or intellectual orientations.’

– see ee Quotes, Spying on Personal Data

*

In addition to using the tariffs to divide & tame socialist & nationalist forces in Sri Lanka by harassing, jailing & decapitating leaders, the US is trying to prevent an actual accounting of the state of international relations, including such economic measures as taxes on especially services, and more particularly, digital services. The US is also trying to obstruct & eliminate the proposed taxes on digital services, such has Google, FB & Hollywood (Netflix, Youtube), etc, which will begin on 1 October. Their subversion of such laws is linked to the larger challenge of controlling multinational banks & corporations, with budgets larger than the economies of most countries. (see ee Quotes, VAT vs Digital Tax)

     The USA’s ‘Magnificent 7’ high-tech companies (NVIDIA, Microsoft, Alphabet/Google, Apple, Meta, Tesla, & Amazon: see ee Quotes) now dominate their economy & their politicians, and are supposed to be highly hyped, inflated & vulnerable – with most also profiting off the ongoing starvation of Palestinians. While their countries never divulge the actual state of their economic & military machineries, corporations & banks, generally, are plagued by a falling rate of profit, and the failure to provide increasing dividends to their shareholders (see ee Quotes, Fake Dividends).

*

AKD’s silent, pragmatic leadership enabled US tariffs to 20%

– Malik Samarawickrama, Economic advisor to UNP leader

Ranil Wickremesinghe (see ee Economists)

*

The USA’s promised ‘reduction’ of their inflated ‘tariffs’ have been profusely hailed by ‘industry bodies’ aka merchant mafia, eg, the Planters’ Association, Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF), Exporters Association (EASL), Association of Manufacturers & Exporters of Rubber Products (SLAMERP), Colombo Rubber Traders’ Association (CRTA). Despite claiming to be ‘of Sri Lanka’, these associations are fronts for the English & US MNCs (eg, Exxon, Unilever, CTC, Proctor & Gamble, etc.) & banks (Standard Chartered, Ciitbank, etc.), who are the real source of so-called corruption (actually, business as usual) through their tax magic & transfer pricing, over- & under-invoicing.

     The merchant & moneylender mafia in Sri Lanka know very clearly that the US & England & EU through their control of the internet, etc., are well aware of their exorbitant acquisitions of  offshore assets in real estate etc, with the cash from their exports never ever being transferred into. They are taken out of Sri Lanka, tax-free, often stolen from other Sri Lankans or the state. Concealed by so-called (London or US) chartered accountants in chains of transfers between opaque holding companies, trusts & cutouts, they are laundered  in violation of Sri Lankan statutes on money laundering, ignoring orders by the government or the Central Bank. Being exposed, or being cut-off from accessing their ill-gotten wealth via visas etc, ensures their submission to the USA. Sri Lankan money is being held in famed tax hideouts as England’s Guernsey, Isle of Man, Cyprus, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Luxembourg, Bermuda (many with the English King or Queen’s head on their stamps!) and the USA’s Delaware, Nevada, & South Dakota; as well as Singapore, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Panama, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica.

     The US threats to take Sri Lanka’s and most other countries’ leaders & economies down, are accompanied by increased war mongering. With their loss of profits and increasing unemployment, with the USA deploying nuclear subs ever closer to Russia, midst the sparking of proxy wars between countries in Asia & Africa, Sri Lanka has little choice for real survival but to abandon fake political partisanship and unite internally & internationally, to face the coming days. Nationalism & internationalism has to be girded by strong economic (modern industrial, the making of machines, not assembly, not just labor-intensive manufacture) policies & practices, that will enable the rule of the real producers, i.e., the working class.

*

• This ee Focus continues its reproduction of Chapter 1 of SBD de Silva’s Introduction to his classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment (PEU). Here de Silva challenges the claim that the import-export plantation economy is more modern compared to peasant agriculture, and has impulses and advances to impart. This excerpt looks at the attempt to go beyond the limitations of neoclassical economic theory, by focusing on human foibles and so-called good governance (corruption etc). They blame Theravada Buddhism, primordial ethnicities, lack of civilization, etc. He also examines the critiques by so-called independent Marxists, focusing not on production but on distribution, and unequal exchange (dependency theory, promoted by white academia), etc. SBD emphasized Marx’s insistence that he had studied in detail only England’s trajectory into industrialization, and economists should be careful about crudely imposing his ‘historical sketch’ onto our countries.

     This ee Focus also continues looking at the roots of demagoguery in the white settler dominion called the USA, through Gustavus Myers’ 1917 History of Tammany Hall, an early charitable NGO! This excerpt looks at the rise of the ‘big boss’ system – through the testimony of its later-indicted leader ‘Boss Tweed,’ after he was broken and diseased, about the control of politicians & elections, judiciary & police, through thuggery, fraud and the distribution of municipal contracts & employment…

*

_______

Contents:

e-Con e-News